The World in Words

Most Haitian kids do not speak fluent French, but that is the language of instruction in the vast majority of Haiti's schools. Recently, some schools have dropped French in favor of Creole, which is universally spoken but often disparaged.

Turkey's president is demanding that students study the Ottoman language in schools. Is this a genuine effort to get Turks to better understand their history? Or a veiled attempt to undermine secularism and democracy?

Students learn in English, Spanish and Nahuatl. But this charter school has had to fight off an effort by officials to close it down.

If you live in California or eight other US states and you're fluent in more than one language, you can now get a bilingual seal on your high school diploma.

"Mafia" pits a well-connected minority against a civilian majority. It was invented as sort of spoof of KGB thinking, but it has gone global: the Russian government uses it to train spies, and would-be entrepreneurs around the world play it to practice their negotiating skills.

We like to know where our food comes from. We tend to know less about where the words for our favorite foods come from.

It's cheaper to crowd-source subtitles for TV shows and movies. But are these translations accurate and concise enough for viewers?

The web is supposed to be killing off mondegreens. But misheard lyrics are alive and well, even on the sites that try to end the confusion.

If you've ever struggled through Marcel Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past," you have C.K. Scott Moncrieff to thank. Moncrieff's translation introduced the French novelist to the English-speaking world. What's more, Moncrieff's own life was a veritable novel.

As the British Army departs from Afghanistan, it's taking a whole new vocabulary with it, to add to an already rich tradition of adopting foreign words and jargon. The Americans too, are adding to their lexicon of military slang.

Reporter Aaron Schachter met Iraqi interpreter Ayub Nuri in Baghdad in 2003. Since then, they have forged a relationship based on a shared desire to bear witness.

We may be in the midst of a golden age of vernacular English literature. Writers like Junot Diaz and M. NourbeSe Philip are introducing readers-- and the the English language-- to thoughts and expressions from their cultural backyards.

A conversation with Michael Wood, one of the editors of the "Dictionary of Untranslatables."

Russian filmmakers must either avoid using profane dialogue or seek alternative ways to show their films, now that Russian 'mat' is no longer permitted in public performances

Don't be fooled by all those Latin, French and German words, says Princeton science historian Michael Gordin. English has long since won science's language war. How that happened has more to do with history than science.

Because the word's origins are murky, it's difficult to know just how insulting calling someone a 'coonass' used to be. For some Cajuns today, it's a badge of honor.

Conceived at the Nuremberg trials, simultaneous interpretation is widely used at global meetings. The interpreters at the UN, EU and elsewhere are humans, not bots. And they're all about getting the nuances right in real time. Take that, Google Translate!

Every cuisine has its own rules about what you eat, when you eat it and how you eat it, says Dan Jurafsky, author of "The Language of Food."

In his retelling of Grimms' fairy tales Adam Gidwitz returns to the blood and gore of the original, while adding his own comments that have a distinctly contemporary flavor.

The Big Show's Marco Werman chats with his mom, Marjolijn de Jager, about her translations of West African French literature, and to David Bellos, author of a history of translation.

Some topics are off limits, but debate contests are part of an effort to instill independent thinking in young Chinese.

The Kazakh language uses the Cyrillic script, but Dutch-born linguist Allard Jongman is helping this oil-rich former Soviet state switch to the Latin Alphabet.

Despite her better judgment, New York-based Russian writer Anya Ulinich uses the web to seek out potential mates. She finds it all but impossible to interpret the profiles of American men, and they don't understand her any better.

Hindi and Urdu are similar when spoken, but they use different scripts. Over time, they have become cultural and religious symbols. Plus, the People's Linguistic Survey of India.

How long does it take for a new variety of a language to evolve once somebody lands in a particular part of the world?